I. Two young travelers have found a way to scam the Indian train system (admittedly, this ability to scam arose from not knowing how to navigate Indian trains). They have paid the 3rd class, non AC fare but are sitting in comfy, 2nd class sleeper berths. Their mold-scented backpacks lie below their outstretched legs and paper cups of sweet, steaming chai are in their hands.
A man in his twenties approaches. The travelers hear him coming as soon as he enters the train car; music is blaring from the headphones wrapped around his neck. His hair and beard are shaggy, his clothes trendy. He hands the two girls a business card for Hotel Gowri. Its in Allappey – the “Venice of India” – which is the town they’re headed to.
“It’s recommended in the Lonely Planet. No pressure. I’ll see you on the platform. You can come with me to the hotel if you want” he says. And he’s gone.
The girls meet him on the platform. They haven’t booked a hotel and are in desperate need of a shower, so they jump into a tuktuk with him and head to Hotel Gowri. By this time they’ve learned that his name is Rex (he will not live up to the suggestions of royalty that are associated with such a name). He is a clothing designer with a shop in Varkala – the beachside town the girls have just left.
“But” he states loudly, “I am bored with Varkala, bored with Allappey. Its time for something else. Maybe Delhi … or Bombay.”
When they get to the hotel Rex disappears. A few hours later, as they sit sharing a beer in a gazebo on the hotel grounds, the girls are surprised to find Rex appear by their side.
these travellers like their tea
“Let’s make a party tonight!” he greets them.
They nod. Why not? After offering to buy them alcohol and taking more money than necessary from what he has clearly deemed to be his new charges, Rex races out of the hotel gates on his motorcycle. He returns to plop drink-mixing necessities in front of the girls and then heads to a nearby gazebo, promising to return (for the “party making”) in an hour. He does indeed return an hour later, but is not in a particularly festive state.
Sweating and distressed, he asks (in a hissed and rather urgent voice) if the two girls would mind lending him 1,000 rupees.
“I’ll pay you back in …” he trails off to glance back at the card game and the group of men that await him, “…ten minutes.”
The girls decline and Rex accepts their answer off gracefully. Again, he races out the front gates on his motorcycle.
Once the card games have finished (and he has made significant losses), Rex joins the girls in their gazebo. He shows them a succession of card tricks and they are suitably impressed. He laughs loudly at all his own jokes.
Soon Rex’s friend arrives. He’s a clean-shaven Gujarati man who smiles easily but has thin, strangely pursed lips and an uptight manner. He calls himself a “corporate” but quickly clarifies that even though he is in this line of work he still drinks his Kingfisher beer straight from the bottle, like every working man. It is unclear how the two men can possibly have anything in common.
.
Finally Rex announces that it is time for the music that he’s been promising all evening and the group moves to the plastic tables and chairs near the hotel entrance to join a guitarist and a couple of other guys from Allappey. The singer/guitarist is slightly pudgy, with jolly cheeks and a lovely voice. He sings numerous Bob Marley songs, some Clapton and the Hindi favourites. Everyone sings along, although Rex is a little more hesitant than the other men. The guitarist urges Rex to rap for them; Rex, the girls have learnt, is also a DJ. Rex claims that he’d love to rap some 50 Cent but all the American slang in “In Da Club” is hard to memorize. Fair enough, the girls think, 50’s a tricky man.
.
It is one of the girls’ birthday at midnight and when the guys find out they are all appalled that her friend didn’t tell them earlier. Are you her real friend, they demand. They serenade the birthday girl very sweetly and mispronounce her name with gusto. The “corporate” has her make a wish and blow out the flame from his lighter. Another guy runs into the hotel lobby and returns with a gift: a small, sandy, sea shell statue of Ganesh. When Rex whispers in the birthday girl’s ear that he’ll get her something nice later, it’s clear that it’s time for the travellers to head to bed.
.
The girls return to their room, swiftly crawling under their mosquito netting so that the enormous black spider they’d spotted earlier doesn’t have a chance to get into bed with them.
II. Kerala Backwaters
A man bikes down the cobbled path which sits in front of me. On the other side of this path lies a vast expanse of ocean, its waves endlessly crashing onto the shore. Small fishing boats dip into the waves and are invisible for a few seconds before emerging again, with their bows pointing stubbornly upwards.
In the backwaters of Kerala a young girl is bent over. Her thick braids are tied with giant, white bows and fall on either side of her face. She is scrubbing clothes on a rock right outside of her house. Rice fields lie behind her. Nearby an older woman is bathing. She is wearing a long, pink dress that reaches down to her ankles. Soapsuds line her arms.
schoolgirls
Children in matching uniforms walk home from school along thin walkways, or hop onto public transport (boats are de rigeur here, there is no use for cars). Every child in this province receives an education. We walk by the home of two young children who are eager to talk to us. Their mother asks if we are friends, and if we are traveling alone. When we affirm that we are two young women backpacking by ourselves, she cries out “courage! courage!” We agree. In fact, after Allappey we made a resolution to tell everyone who asks that our boyfriends are waiting for us in the next town.
One man sits at the back of his canoe-like wooden boat. He steers with one hand and holds a multipurpose umbrella (protection from both sun and rain) with another. Keralan fishermen all use this type of long, thin fishing boat but the Karnataka people – who come here from Andhra Pradesh as migrant fishermen (“they come here to take our fish and money and then leave” states the ship’s captain) – paddle by in circular vessels that look more like flying saucers than fishing ships.
Our boat driver tells us that here the Indian government gives each family around 100 litres of water each day. Large wooden boats cross the waterways in the morning, delivering jugs of water that is fit to drink.
